Daniel Lewin. [Source: Akamai Technologies]An FAA memo written on the evening of 9/11, and later leaked, will suggest that a man on Flight 11 is shot and killed by a gun before the plane crashes into the World Trade Center. The “Executive Summary,” based on information relayed by a flight attendant to the American Airlines Operation Center, states “that a passenger located in seat 10B [Satam Al Suqami] shot and killed a passenger in seat 9B [Daniel Lewin] at 9:20 a.m.” (Note that since Flight 11 crashes at 8:46, the time must be a typographical error, probably meaning 8:20). A report in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on September 17 will identify Lewin as a former member of the Israel Defense Force Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s most successful Special Operations unit. [United Press International, 3/6/2002] Sayeret Matkal is a deep penetration unit that has been involved in assassinations, the theft of foreign signals intelligence materials, and the theft and destruction of foreign nuclear weaponry. It is best known for the 1976 rescue of 106 passengers at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. [New Yorker, 10/29/2001] Lewin founded Akamai, a successful computer company, and his connections to Sayeret Matkal will remain hidden until the gun story becomes known. [Guardian, 9/15/2001] FAA and American Airline officials will later deny the gun story and suggest that Lewin is probably stabbed to death instead. [Washington Post, 3/2/2002; United Press International, 3/6/2002] Officials assert that the leaked document was a “first draft,” and subsequently corrected, but decline to release the final draft, calling it “protected information.” However, an FAA official present when the memo is drafted will dispute the FAA’s claim, asserting that “[t]he document was reviewed for accuracy by a number of people in the room, including myself and a couple of managers of the operations center.” [WorldNetDaily, 3/7/2002] This unnamed official is probably Bogdan Dzakovic, a leader of the FAA’s “red team” conducting covert security inspections. He will later tell the 9/11 Commission: “There are serious indications that the FAA deceived the public about what happened on 9/11. On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, I was working in one of the FAA operations centers collecting information on details of what happened during the hijacking. We received information that a firearm was used on one of the hijacked aircraft.… That evening the administrator of FAA requested an executive summary covering the day’s activities, and this information about a gun was included in the summary. Days later, without any explanation or questioning of the summary’s author, the administrator publicly announced that no guns had been used in the hijacking. Several months passed when the press re-surfaced this issue. FAA’s initial response was that no so such executive summary existed. Later, when confronted with the document, FAA admitted the executive summary existed, but denied its accuracy. Sometime later I learned that another operations center also received a report that a firearm was used.… There were also reports of a possible explosive threatened on a flight.” [CBS News, 2/25/2002; 9/11 Commission, 5/22/2003; Village Voice, 2/8/2005]

Nydia Gonzalez. [Source: 9/11 Commission]Nydia Gonzalez, a supervisor at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, joins a phone call between two employees at her office and Betty Ong, a flight attendant on the hijacked Flight 11. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8-9] Ong called the reservations office at 8:18 a.m. to report the hijacking (see 8:18 a.m. September 11, 2001), and has since then been talking to two employees there: Vanessa Minter and Winston Sadler. Sadler pushed the emergency button on his phone to alert personnel in the operations area of the reservations office, so that one of them could pick up the call from Ong. A colleague of Gonzalez’s initially picked up the call, but Gonzalez quickly takes over from them. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 38-41; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 453; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Gonzalez, Minter, and Sadler are in different areas of the reservations office, but all three of them are able to monitor Ong’s call. [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ]Supervisor Told of Stabbings on Flight 11 - The first thing Gonzalez says when she joins the call is: “This is operations. What flight number are we talking about?” Ong earlier told Minter and Sadler, incorrectly, that she was on “Flight 12,” not Flight 11 (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001). Sadler therefore tells Gonzalez, “Flight 12.” Ong quickly corrects him, saying: “We’re on Flight 11 right now. This is Flight 11.… Boston to Los Angeles.” She also repeats information she previously gave to Minter and Sadler, saying, “Our number one [flight attendant] has been stabbed and our [number] five [flight attendant] has been stabbed.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 3-6]Supervisor Notifies Airline's Operations Center - Gonzalez is an operations specialist, and her responsibilities include monitoring any emergency situations with American Airlines flights and forwarding information to the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center in Fort Worth, Texas. [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004 ; Spencer, 2008, pp. 17] She immediately realizes the seriousness of the situation on Flight 11 and therefore, while remaining connected to Ong’s call, phones the SOC on a separate line to notify it of the problem (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9] Gonzalez will later recall that she finds Ong to be “calm, professional, and in control throughout the call.” [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004 ] She will also say that during the time she is monitoring Ong’s call, she does not hear much commotion in the background. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 69-71]

Michael Woodward, an American Airlines flight services manager at Logan International Airport in Boston, goes with a colleague to the American Airlines gate area at Logan Airport in response to a call from a flight attendant on Flight 11, but finds the area quiet and sees that all of his airline’s morning flights, including Flight 11, have already left the airport. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 5-6; 9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 10]Manager and Colleague Head to Departure Gate - Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant on Flight 11, called the American Airlines flight services office at Logan Airport at 8:25 a.m. and told Evelyn Nunez, a passenger service agent, about the trouble on her plane (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001). Nunez passed on the details of the call to Woodward. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 57-58; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 10] She told Woodward that the plane on which the trouble occurred was at Gate 32 at the airport. Woodward therefore heads to the departure gate with Elizabeth Williams, a colleague of his, to see if the plane is still there. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 5-6] Williams will later recall that Woodward tells her that “they needed to go to Gate 32 because two flight attendants had been stabbed.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/13/2001, pp. 3-4] Sweeney incorrectly told Nunez that she was on Flight 12, not Flight 11. However, Flight 11 did indeed depart from Gate 32 at Logan Airport (see 7:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 57-58; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 7]Manager and Colleague Realize They Have Been Given Incorrect Information - Woodward will say that when he and Williams reach Gate 32, they find that all of American Airlines’ morning flights have already left Logan Airport. [9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 10] However, Williams will contradict this, telling the FBI that when she and Woodward reach the departure gate, they find “an empty airplane” there. Williams uses the gate-side computer to search for information on the flight time of the plane at Gate 32, while Woodward phones Nunez. Williams and Woodward then conclude that they must have received incorrect information. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/13/2001, pp. 3-4]Manager Realizes Flight 12 Is a Plane from Los Angeles - Woodward realizes that Flight 12—the plane Sweeney said she was on—is a flight from the West Coast that has not yet left for Boston. He says to Williams: “Wait a minute: Flight 12 comes in at night. It hasn’t even left Los Angeles yet.” Woodward will tell the 9/11 Commission that he is currently thinking about how “sometimes the [American Airlines] operations center will call when there is a problem on a flight, and tell them to meet it when the aircraft lands.” Presumably he means that he is wondering if the call Nunez received from Sweeney was actually made by someone at the airline’s operations center, who was referring to a flight that is heading to Boston. Woodward and Williams check out the gate area and then, finding nothing wrong there, walk back to their office, which takes them about two minutes. Woodward will talk to Sweeney when she calls the flight services office again at 8:32 a.m. (see (8:32 a.m.-8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 10-11]

Michael Woodward, a manager at the American Airlines flight services office at Logan International Airport in Boston, instructs a colleague to find out the details of three hijackers on Flight 11, based on their seat numbers, but it is unclear whether his colleague is then able to identify the hijackers. [ABC News, 7/18/2002; New York Observer, 2/15/2004] Since 8:32 a.m., Woodward has been on the phone with Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant on Flight 11, who has been describing to him the trouble on her plane (see (8:32 a.m.-8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11] During the call, she says that the men who hijacked her plane were in seats 9D, 9G, and 10B. [9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ] According to the New York Observer, Woodward then orders a colleague “to punch up those seat locations on the computer.” [New York Observer, 2/15/2004] This enables airline personnel “to pull up [the hijackers’] names, phone numbers, addresses—and even credit card numbers—on the reservations computer,” according to ABC News. ABC News will add, “One of the names that came up was Mohamed Atta,” the name of the lead hijacker. [ABC News, 7/18/2002] However, apart from 10B—the number of the seat belonging to Satam Al Suqami—the seat numbers provided by Sweeney are different to the numbers of the seats assigned to the hijackers. The five hijackers on Flight 11 were in seats 2A, 2B, 8D, 8G, and 10B, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Atta was in seat 8D—not one of the seats mentioned by Sweeney. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 2] It is therefore unclear whether American Airlines is able to determine the identities of any of the hijackers, other than, presumably, Al Suqami, at this time. Evelyn Nunez, a passenger service agent at the American Airlines flight services office, was provided with the seat number of Al Suqami, but none of the other hijackers, when she talked with Sweeney in an earlier call, at 8:25 a.m. (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001). By running a computer check, she was able to determine Al Suqami’s identity from this number. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 57-58] Nancy Wyatt, another employee in the flight services office, will pass on the three hijackers’ seat numbers provided by Sweeney to the American Airlines System Operations Control center in Fort Worth, Texas, when she calls it at 8:40 a.m. (see 8:40 a.m.-8:48 a.m. September 11, 2001). [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 34-41; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14]

Nancy Wyatt, a manager at the American Airlines flight services office at Logan International Airport in Boston, talks on the phone with an employee at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center, and passes on to them information that is being provided by a flight attendant on the hijacked Flight 11, but the SOC employee advises Wyatt to keep quiet about the hijacking. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 34-41; 9/11 Commission, 2004, pp. 4; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14; Rutgers Law Review, 9/7/2011, pp. 14 ] Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant on Flight 11, called the flight services office at 8:32 a.m., and has since then been providing details of the trouble on her plane to Michael Woodward, an American Airlines flight services manager at Logan Airport (see (8:32 a.m.-8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11]Wyatt Passes on Details of Call in Real Time - Wyatt, who, like Woodward, is an American Airlines flight services manager, calls the American Airlines SOC in Fort Worth, Texas, at 8:40 a.m. Her call is answered by Ray Howland. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/15/2001, pp. 2-4; 9/11 Commission, 2004, pp. 4; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14] During the call, Wyatt is able to pass on information to Howland in real time, because she is standing next to Woodward and so is hearing his side of the conversation with Sweeney, and she is also able to read the notes he is taking, based on what Sweeney tells him. [9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ]Wyatt Unclear about Name of Flight Attendant - Wyatt is unclear about the identity of the flight attendant Woodward is talking to. At the start of the call with Howland, she says, “We’ve got the flight attendants on the line here.” A couple of minutes later, she says, “We’ve got… Betty Ong, the purser, on the line.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 34-41] However, Ong is currently on the phone with the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina (see 8:18 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8] Finally, another couple of minutes later and after checking with Woodward, Wyatt tells Howland, “Amy Sweeney is on the phone.” Wyatt Passes on Hijackers' Seat Numbers - Based on Sweeney’s information, Wyatt says that Flight 11 “is in a rapid descent.” She tells Howland that the hijackers were in seats 9D, 9G, and 10B, and she says one of them “speaks no English.” She also reports, several minutes into the call, that the hijackers are “in the cockpit.” Wyatt tells Howland that two flight attendants, Karen Martin and Barbara Arestegui, have been stabbed. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 34-41] Referring to passenger Daniel Lewin, who was attacked by one of the hijackers (see (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001), she says: “There is severe bleeding. There is a slashed throat.” She subsequently says, “There is a passenger also injured.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 34-41; WBUR, 9/8/2011]Airline Wants Information Withheld from Plane's Crew - During the call, Howland tells Wyatt that the SOC wants some information to be withheld from Sweeney and the other crew members on Flight 11. After Wyatt says the flight attendants on Flight 11 “are concerned” because they “don’t know what’s going on in the cockpit,” Howland replies that the SOC is “trying to get in contact with the cockpit,” but then says, “We don’t really want to tell [Sweeney] that.” Wyatt confirms: “Okay, don’t. Okay, okay. Got it.” And when Wyatt later asks: “Do we know where that plane is going to right now?” Howland replies: “We don’t know.… [I]t looks like it’s going to JFK” International Airport in New York, but he then says: “I mean, we don’t really want to give a whole lot of information to that flight. Okay?” Wyatt confirms: “Okay, we’re not. We’re not giving them that information to that flight.” Airline Employees Told to Keep Quiet about Hijacking - Wyatt and Howland also want American Airlines employees on the ground to keep quiet about the hijacking. At about 8:46 a.m., while she is still on the phone with Howland, Wyatt says to a colleague of hers: “Evelyn, don’t mention this to anyone. Me, you, Beth. Just the five of us. Okay?” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 34-41] (“Evelyn” and “Beth” are Evelyn Nunez and Elizabeth Williams, two American Airlines employees at Logan Airport. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 57-58; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/13/2001, pp. 3-4; 9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ] ) Near the end of her call with Howland, Wyatt asks, “What do you want us to do as far as just keeping our mouths shut and not… ?” Howland answers simply, “That’s basically it.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 34-41] Wyatt notifies Howland when the call from Sweeney gets disconnected, at around 8:45 a.m. (see (8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14] Her call with Howland ends at 8:48 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 2004, pp. 4]

When the recording of flight attendant Betty Ong is played in public before the 9/11 Commission in January 2004, family members demand that the FBI honor the family members’ rights under the Victims Assistance Act to hear any and all phone calls made from the hijacked airplanes. So, on this date, about 130 victims’ relatives gather in Princeton, New Jersey, and hear previously unavailable calls. But the Justice Department only plays what it decided are “relevant” calls. However, attendees are ordered not to disclose what they hear lest it compromise the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui. [CNN, 5/28/2004; Associated Press, 6/5/2004; New York Observer, 6/20/2004] Some family members nonetheless later discuss what they have heard. Witnesses describe one recording of two American Airlines managers who are told details of flight attendant Amy Sweeney’s call from Flight 11 shortly after the first hijacking has begun. Rather than report news of a possible hijacking to other government agencies so they can learn what to do in case there is a crisis, the managers say things like, “don’t spread this around. Keep it close,” and “Keep it quiet” (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001)
[New York Observer, 6/20/2004]

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